Bush warns against federalization of airport security

President Bush urged Congress Saturday not to federalize baggage screeners at the nation's airports and called for quick approval of a House bill that would allow contract employees under federal supervision to handle airport security chores. In his weekly radio address, Bush endorsed a bill (H.R. 3150) introduced by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, that would enable the government to continue using contract employees to screen baggage. Making all baggage screeners federal employees, as a Senate-passed bill (S. 1447) would do, limits the government's flexibility to put together a new airport security workforce, according to Bush. "My approach gives the government the flexibility it needs to assemble a skilled and disciplined screening workforce," said Bush. The President added the Young bill is "modeled after" the administration's proposal for improving airport security and referred to Young's legislation as "my proposal." On Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said that while Bush preferred the Young bill, he would not veto a measure federalizing the airport security workforce if both houses of Congress approved it.

"I suspect he wouldn't want to have to sign it, but he would. He wants airline security," Card said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

In his radio address, Bush said the Young bill would allow managers to "move aggressively" to fire employees who fail to meet new security standards, presumably because contract employees are easier to dismiss than federal workers. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer has said the difficulty of firing federal employees is a central reason why Bush supports Young's legislation. "There's a real question about whether you put every single person on the federal payroll, whether or not, if they fail to do their jobs, can [they be fired]," said Fleischer on Friday. "That's often a problem with the federal civil service. If somebody joins the federal civil service, it's often impossible to take any discipline action in a prompt fashion." But civil service rules do allow quick fires in certain cases, according to John Palguta, director of policy and evaluation at the Merit Systems Protection Board. Palguta, who described the notion that federal workers can't be fired as a "partial myth" in a recent interview, noted that federal employees can easily be dismissed during their probation period, which typically lasts for the first year of employment.

"Thousands of folks each year are separated during probation," said Palguta. "If I'm a manager and have someone on probation, I can write a couple of paragraphs saying, look you…didn't meet quality standards, and I therefore regret to say that your employment will be terminated, and that's that." Federal employees on probation still have the right to appeal if they were fired because of their political affiliation or race. If baggage screeners were put on the federal payroll, they could be put on an extended probationary period during which they could be quickly fired for poor performance, Palguta said. Delinquent baggage screeners could also be easily fired under the Senate-passed bill, which exempts baggage screeners from the appeal provisions of Title 5 of the U.S. Code. The House plans to vote on Young's bill this week.